In Dubious Battle - Characters

Characters

  • Doc Burton – A doctor who, despite his skepticism of leftist views, works in the strikers' camp, ensuring that it cannot be disbanded on the basis of a lack of sanitation.
  • Jim Nolan– New member of the "Party," whose political development is one of the book's central themes. His father was a Communist himself, and was legendary as one who fought.
  • London – the second, but more significant, elected leader of the striking workers
  • Mrs. Meer – Jim's landlady
  • Harry Nilson – Party official who initiates Jim's application process for the Party
  • Roy Nolan – Jim's father (killed three years earlier)
  • Mr. Webb – Manager at Tulman's Department Store, where Jim worked who denies knowing Jim when he hears he is a radical.
  • May Nolan – Jim's older sister who mysteriously disappears at a young age
  • Mac McLeod – Party organizer and Jim's mentor
  • Dick Halsing – "pretty boy" party member in charge of soliciting Party sympathizers for donations
  • Joy – naive, possibly brain-damaged from police brutality, aggressive party member; World War I veteran
  • Alfred Anderson – Owner/operator of Al's Lunch Wagon; Communist sympathizer and son of a small farmer.
  • Sam – "lean-face", a picker
  • Lisa – London's daughter-in-law who is assisted by Mac when in labor
  • Dan – an old picker whose fall from a rotten ladder initially causes the other workers to take strike action
  • Dakin – leader of pickers at the Hunter place
  • Alla – Dakin's wife
  • Jerry – a picker at Hunter's who favors strike
  • Al Anderson – Alfred's father, small farm owner, proud of his dogs
  • Burke – Dakin's assistant
  • Albert Johnson – truck owner
  • Bolter – President of the Fruitgrower's Association who attempts to negotiate with the strikers

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